


Family Secrets

by cdybedahl



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Crack, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 11:12:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10097219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cdybedahl/pseuds/cdybedahl
Summary: If there is one thing all the families in Riverdale has in common, it's dark old secrets that come back to haunt the younger generation.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Whoever decided to make a gothic romance out of the "Archie" comics is a genius. And after they brought out the very traditionally gothic story element of carting off a daughter who got pregnant with the wrong boy to be locked up in an insane asylum run by malicious nuns, my stupid brain insisted on trying to add another traditional element. So here you go.

A fragrant night summer wind blows Veronica’s hair into her face when she and Betty walks out of Pop’s. Betty’s hand strokes it back to where it belongs before Veronica can do so herself. She turns to her blonde lover, smiling.  
“Thank you,” she says. “You keep better track of me than I do myself.”  
Betty smiles back at her. Or maybe just keeps smiling at her. It’s possible that she hasn’t stopped smiling all evening.  
“I just like looking at you,” Betty says. “Kind of a lot.”  
“You’re so welcome to,” Veronica says.  
Her smile turns sly.  
“As long as you don’t stop at just looking,” she adds.  
As a response, Betty puts her hands on Veronica’s shoulders, pulls herself close so close and kisses her beloved. Passionately, with no hesitation, just the carnal hunger of newborn love.  
“No risk of that,” Betty whispers when they finally break apart, breathless.  
Betty’s hands move down from Veronica’s shoulders until they rest on her breasts. Betty moves in for another kiss. Veronica takes half a step back, licks her lips and draws a deep breath.  
“Car,” she says. “Now. While I still have enough self control left not to fuck you right outside Pop’s.”  
Betty’s disappointed frown turns into an embarrassed smile. Her hands fly to cover her mouth. She laughs.  
“Oh God,” she says. “I totally forgot where we were.”  
Veronica puts her hands on Betty’s hips.  
“Get in the car,” she says. “Drive a quarter mile down the road, park behind those trees there and I’ll make you forget your name.”  
Betty’s hands goes back on Veronica’s shoulders, but this time the blonde just looks adoringly at the raven-haired beauty.  
“You always do,” she whispers.

  


Betty misses her curfew, and not by a little. She walks up the stairs to her home with trepidation. There’s a light on in the kitchen, which means that her mother is waiting for her. Waiting and not happy.  
As if her mother ever was happy.  
Delaying further will only make things worse, so Betty doesn’t wait. She walks up the final steps, opens the door and enters. Walking from the night air outside into the still air inside feels like entering an old prison.  
“You’re late,” her mother says.  
She sitting on a chair at the kitchen table, a glass of some brown liquor in her hand.  
“Sorry,” Betty lies. “We got caught up playing a video game. Forgot the time.”  
She stands just inside the kitchen door, arms defensively crossed across her chest.  
“Really,” Alice says. “Who were ‘we’?”  
Betty shrugs.  
“The usual gang. Me, Archie, Jughead, Kevin.”  
“Not Veronica?” her mother says.  
Betty shakes her head.  
“No,” she says. “Not Veronica.”  
“That’s weird,” Alice says. “Because I got this picture a couple of hours ago.”  
She picks up her phone from the kitchen table, unlocks it and holds it for Betty to see. Betty doesn’t even need to step closer to see what the picture is. It’s herself and Veronica kissing outside Pop’s. Taken by someone inside. Betty doesn’t remember who was there, but she’s pretty sure the picture was sent to her mother by Cheryl. There’s really no one else who’d do such a thing. Betty bites her lip.  
“So?” she says.  
“So this, whatever it is, stops right now,” Alice says.  
Betty’s nails bite into her palms. Bile rises in her throat.  
“What is this, anyway?” Alice says. “Is she your girlfriend, or do you kiss all your friends like that?”  
The ghost of Veronica’s voice whispers inside Betty’s head, reminding her that she’s strong, that she can stand up for herself. That she doesn’t have to cave in.  
“Yes,” she manages to get out. “Yes, Veronica is my girlfriend.”  
“My God,” her mother says.  
She turns and looks out the window, momentarily covers her mouth with her hand.  
“How long has this been going on?” she says.  
“Maybe a month,” Betty says.  
“Well, you’re grounded until you graduate,” Alice says. “You won’t be seeing that Lodge girl again.”  
The memory of Veronica’s hand resting on the small of her back gives Betty strength.  
“What?” she says. “Why? What’s your problem with Veronica? You’ve hardly even met her!”  
“She’s a Lodge,” Alice says. “That’s enough. I know what that family is like.”  
Betty stares at her in stunned silence.  
“That’s it?” she says. “You want me to break up with the girl I love because, what, her mother teased you in High School or something? You’re insane. I’m not doing that.”  
Alice snorts.  
“Love,” she says. “As if a Lodge would be capable of anything like that.”  
“Well, in the case of being unable to love I definitely bow to your vastly greater expertise!”  
Betty is mildly proud if herself for thinking of that comeback, but unfortunately it doesn’t seem to faze her mother at all. Her mother takes a sip from her drink. She looks at the picture on the phone again.  
“Are you having sex with her?” she asks.  
Some barrier has broken down inside Betty. She’s saying things to her mother that she’d never have dared even think before she met Veronica.  
“Yes,” she says. “We are. As often as we can.”  
Her mother closes her eyes and _groans_.  
“Oh, Betty,” she says. “What have you done?”  
Betty frowns, momentarily confused.  
“What?” she says. “What did you expect? Did you think that wouldn’t happen if I met someone who wasn’t a Lodge?”  
A thought wedges it way in between all her emotions.  
“Or someone who wasn’t a girl?” Betty says. “Is that it? Are you homophobic?”  
“You and Veronica Lodge can not be lovers,” Alice says. “You… just can’t.”  
A short, bitter laugh somehow exits through Betty’s lips.  
“We can’t?” Betty says. “Well, in _that_ case, of course!”  
She looks at her mother for a moment. There’s something slightly off about the way her mother’s behaving. She can’t put her finger on it, and honestly at the moment she doesn’t really care.  
“I’m sorry, mom,” she says. “But this is the twenty-first century. Lesbian love is OK now. You might even be happy that I’m in a relationship with significantly less risk of getting STDs, and no risk of accidental pregnancy. If you want to convince me to leave someone who makes me happy, who makes my entire life so much better, you’ll have to come up with a much better reason than some stupid old family quarrel!”  
Her mother picks up her drink and looks at Betty over the edge of the glass, her expression unreadable.  
“She’s your sister,” her mother says.  
Betty stares at her mother for several seconds, her mind gone suddenly blank.  
“What?” she finally says.

  


Veronica Lodge hurries out from the building where she and her mother lives, hastily dressed in jeans, hoodie and sneakers. Over the past half hour, she’s had a couple of dozen increasingly incoherent and clearly unhappy texts from her love, and that sort of thing makes proper clothes become a distant second priority. She looks around. Betty’s last five texts says that she’d be waiting outside the building. The barrage of texts has Veronica feeling actually afraid, and it’s with a mixed feeling of relief and apprehension that she spots her girlfriend sitting on the low stone wall separating the sidewalk from the lawn. She hurries over. Close up, it’s obvious that Betty has been crying. She’s more tense than Veronica has ever seen her.  
“ _Mi amor_?” Veronica says the moment she gets close enough. “What’s wrong?”  
She sits down next to Betty, tries to put her arms around her. Betty _recoils_ from her touch. Veronica’s feeling of fear gains about a billion intensity points in a split second.  
“Betty?” she says. “Talk to me. _Please_? What’s happened?”  
Betty turns to look at her. Her eyes are tear-puffed, her mascara has run. She gives Veronica the most adorably cute smile as tears start running down her face again.  
“We can’t be together,” she says.  
“Yes we can,” Veronica says. “I don’t care what _anybody_ says, I love you and I am going to be with you.”  
She reaches out, slowly, and runs her fingers through Betty’s hair.  
“Unless you say you don’t want to any more?” she says.  
Betty smiles and sobs.  
“I want to,” Betty says. “I want to so much.”  
“Well, then,” Veronica says. “What’s the problem?”  
“We’re sisters,” Betty says.  
It takes Veronica a second or two to actually grasp what she just heard. When she does, she doesn’t believe her ears.  
“Excuse me?” she says.  
“My mom told me,” Betty says. “She had an affair about seventeen years ago. With Hiram Lodge.”  
Betty’s face turns into a twisted smile and she gestures at herself.  
“And so here I am,” she says.  
“No way,” Veronica says, dread spreading through her chest. “ _No way_. That can’t be true. That _mustn’t_ be true.”  
“She had pictures,” Betty says. “Of her and your… _our_ dad. And it does kind of explain why she has such a massive hate-on for your family.”  
Thoughts fly through Veronica’s head. Alice and Hiram having an affair actually does explain some things about the elder generation. But still.  
“No, I’m sorry,” she says. “I want more than just your mother’s word for this. I’m sorry Bets, but I wouldn’t put it beyond her to make something like this up just to separate us. Unless the pictures she showed you were of them actually… making you, they may be more innocent than she claims.”  
Betty sniffles.  
“Maybe,” she says. “But where would we get confirmation? It’s not like we can go to your dad and ask for a paternity test.”  
Veronica gets up, holds out her hand to Betty.  
“Maybe not,” she says. “But we can start by going and asking my mom.”

  


Hermione Lodge almost comes running when the two girls enter the apartment.  
“What’s happened?” she says, clearly worried. “I heard Veronica getting a lot of texts, then she ran out of here in a frightful hurry. Is something wrong?”  
She stops to take in Betty’s tearstained appearance, her own daughter’s tense look and draws the obvious conclusion. Her face hardens into an expression that’s a near mirror-image of Veronica’s.  
“What happened?” she says.  
“Betty’s mom claims we’re sisters,” Veronica says.  
Hermione’s face falls. She takes a step back.  
“Oh,” she says. “I was hoping she wouldn’t.”  
Betty closes her eyes.  
“Oh God,” she says. “Oh God.”  
Veronica’s face goes pale.  
“Alice Cooper is _right_?” she says. “This whole time, you _knew_ I was sleeping with my _sister_?”  
Hermione makes a placating gesture.  
“ _Mi hija_ ,” she says. “You two were so happy. What difference does it make, anyway? It’s not like you grew up together. A few months ago, you didn’t even know about each others’ existence! And it’s not like you’re going to be making any babies together.”  
“Oh my God,” Veronica says. “I don’t believe this. This can’t be true. How could you not tell me?”  
Hermione gestures at them with both hands.  
“I did not want _this_ ,” she says. “Was that so wrong of me? I just want you to be happy.”  
Betty looks at Veronica.  
“I can’t stay here,” she whispers.  
“Me neither,” Veronica whispers back.  
She turns to her mother.  
“I… we can’t be here right now,” she says. “We’ll find a hotel room for the night.”  
She thinks about that for a moment.  
“With twin beds,” she adds.  
Hermione nods.  
“I understand,” she says. “But let’s talk tomorrow, yes? Please?”  
Veronica nods.  
“Sure,” she says. “Tomorrow.”  
She opens the door and gently urges Betty to go through it. Just as she’s about to follow, her mother speaks again.  
“I know it’s not much of a silver lining, _mi hija_ ,” Hermione says. “But at least you’re not actually the daughter of infamous fraud Hiram Lodge. Maybe your real father can adopt you, so you don’t have to carry the name any more.”  
Veronica freezes. In front of her, Betty does the same. Slowly, Veronica turns to look at her mother.  
“ _What_?” she says, slowly and clearly.

  


They don’t go to a hotel. None of them feel up to going through the motions of asking for a room, and all that. Instead they get a couple of sleeping bags and some camping gear out of Betty’s family’s garage, and set it all up in Jughead’s old treehouse.  
“This town,” Veronica says when they’ve settled. “There must be something in the air. Or the water.”  
They’re lying in separate sleeping bags, but turned to each other and as close as they can manage.  
“Let’s just hope it’s not genetic,” Betty says.  
Her eyes are closed. She looks exhausted. Which, in Veronica’s considered opinion, is at least much better than crying her eyes out. She untangles a hand from her sleeping bag and strokes Betty’s cheek.  
“Do you think your mom knows?” she says. “That while she was screwing my dad, my mom was doing the same thing with your dad?”  
“Don’t know,” Betty says, turning her head toward Veronica’s hand. “Don’t care. I’m just glad we aren’t actually sisters.”  
“Right back at you,” Veronica says. “Betty Lodge.”  
Betty smiles.  
“Do you know something, Veronica Cooper?” she says.  
A ton of metaphorical rocks fall off Veronica’s shoulders when she sees her beloved smile again. She smiles back.  
“No, what?”  
“When we get married, the seating arrangements are going to be a nightmare.”  
“ _When_ , huh?” Veronica says. “But you’re right. Let’s have Cheryl do it.”  
Betty almost but not quite laughs.  
“Why not?” she says. “Also, you’re right.”  
“Right about what?” Veronica asks.  
Betty moves forward a little, so she can place a quick kiss on Veronica’s forehead.  
“ _This town_ ,” she says.


End file.
